From His Personal Photographs, The Restelli Collection

The Birth of Live Entertainment and Music on Television, November
6, 1936

November 6, 1936 Press Release from NBC Television

Experimental Television Demonstration For The Press

National Broadcasting Company RCA Building, Radio City, N.Y. November
6, 1936 TELEVISION DEVELOPMENTS DEMONSTRATED FOR PRESS BY NBC AND RCA

Television program transmission was demonstrated for the press today
(Friday, November 6) by the National Broadcasting Company in a 40-minute
program illustrating RCA experimental developments. The pictures were
broadcast from the transmitter on top of the Empire State Building,
and were received on the 62nd floor of the RCA Building.

David Sarnoff, President of the Radio Corporation of America, reported
on results of field tests conducted by the company engineers since September
1 last. Lenox R. Lohr, President of NBC, discussed the practical problems
presented in staging performances for the air.

1936, Eddie Albert and Grace Brandt in Albert's "The Love Nest".
This was televisions first original drama.

The demonstration possessed four features not included in previous
press demonstrations of television. It was the first made by RCA and
the National Broadcasting Company for the press under practical working
conditions, although previous demonstrations of laboratory television
have been given. It represented the first showing of a complete program
built for entertainment value as well as a demonstration of transmission.
It also included the first showing of the new 12-inch receiving tube,
which reproduces a picture on a 7 ½ by 10-inch screen. This is the largest
screen yet employed which is capable of commercial adaptation.

Introducing RCA's experimental field test 1936 RR-359 9" receiving
set. A newer version of this was used for this demonstration which had
a 12" picture tube.

A fourth feature of the demonstration was a television tour behind
the scenes. By means of an especially prepared moving picture film,
the guests were conducted through the NBC television studios in the
RCA Building and the transmitter station at the top of the Empire State
Building. The watchers in front of the line of receivers installed for
the demonstration saw the processes whereby performances by “live” talent
are transformed into pictures through the air, witnessed the scanning
of moving picture films, and observed in detail the intricate television
apparatus in actual operation.

Betty Goodwin, NBC's Program Announcer for this demonstration

Besides the talks by Messrs. Sarnoff and Lohr, and the behind-the-scenes
film, the audience was entertained by the Inkspots (The Ink Spots),
colored comedy teams, and Hildegarde, “The Television Girl,” in characteristic
songs. A Bob Benchley short and a selection of newsreel subjects also
were demonstrated by television. The program was announced by Betty
Goodwin, of the NBC Press Department.

Top; Hildegarde, international star performed 2 live songs. Above;
The Ink Spots performed live also, (Inkspots from the top; Hoppy Jones,
Deek Watson, Bill Kenny, and Charlie Fuqua) , these were television
firsts! Music Television and the spirit of MTV should mark November
6, 1936 as their birth.

The demonstration was presented and supervised by Ralph R. Beal, RCA
Research Supervisor; O. B. Hanson, NBC Chief Engineer, and Charles W.
Horn, NBC Director of Research and Development. These engineers explained
that numerous problems of transmission and production will still remain
to be solved before television on a commercial scale can be attempted.

The demonstration was the first showing for the press of RCA experimental
television under practical field conditions since the Radio Corporation
of America assigned the task of setting up a television operating plant
to the National Broadcasting Company.

This assignment included the construction of studios adapted to television
technique, the installation of equipment in those studios and at the
transmitter atop the Empire State Building, the determination of workable
engineering methods for the transmission of the pictures, and the training
of a staff to take over the operation of the plant.

A Bob Benchley short and a selection of newsreel subjects also
were demonstrated by television

A view of the Control Panel from the transmitting station atop
the Empire State Building

Lenox R. Lohr, President of the National Broadcasting Company
Talks about NBC's Television Future

December 6, 1936 Press Release from NBC Television

Lenox Lohr Statement For The Press

National Broadcasting Company RCA Building, Radio City, N.Y.

November 6, 1936

Statement by Lenox R. Lohr, President of the National Broadcasting
Company, introducing Mr. Sarnoff at the NBC Press Demonstration of RCA
Experimental Television:

On behalf of the National Broadcasting Company, I extend a cordial
welcome to the representatives of the press who are assembled upstairs
to see this television demonstration. What you will see today is the
result of tireless effort on the part of many men and the expenditure
of huge sums over a period of many years. The success of these efforts
you can judge for yourselves. But, at last, television is out of the
laboratory and into the field, undergoing tests which will assure that
it does not reach the public until it is capable of satisfactory service.

The role of the National Broadcasting Company in television will be
operating transmitters, programming, and, when it becomes available
for commercial use, securing sponsors. In order that we may be prepared
to do our part, our engineers are daily putting apparatus on the air
under practical service conditions.

Grace Brandt and Eddie Albert apply heavy make up. The basic
makeup was green toned with purple lipstick for the iconoscope pick
up camera.

Our Program Department is learning an entire new technique in continuity
writing, make-up, staging, and a multitude of other details which this
new art will demand. It is experimenting with commercial programs to
determine the effectiveness of televison to sell goods.

Our engineers are studying the economics of networking, so that several
stations may be interconnected by either coaxial cable of short-wave
relays, and are developing equipment for the making of outside pick-ups.
With the experience that we are gaining daily, we feel that when the
time is ripe to offer television to the public, the National Broadcasting
Company will be prepared to do its part. As you see television put through
its paces here today, you will see results which are largely due to
the vision and enterprise of Mr. David Sarnoff, President of the Radio
Corporation of America, who will now speak to you.

David Sarnoff, President of the Radio Corporation of America

TELEVISION STATEMENT TO PRESS November 6, 1936 by David Sarnoff,
President Radio Corporation of America

In view of the public interest in the promise of sight as well as
sound through the air, we have invited you here today to witness an
experimental television test so that the progress in this new and promising
art may be reflected to the public factually rather than through the
haze of conjecture or speculation.

You will recall that our field tests in television began only on June
29 of this year. That date marked the beginning in this country of organized
television experiments between a regular transmitting station and a
number of homes. Since then we have advanced and are continuing to advance
simultaneously along the three broad fronts of television development–research
which must point the road to effective transmission and reception; technical
progress which must translate into practical sets for the home the achievements
of our laboratories; and field tests to determine the needs and possibilities
of a public service that will ultimately enable us to see as well as
to hear programs through the air. On all these fronts our work has made
definite progress and has brought us nearer the desired goal.

First and as of immediate interest, let me tell you the progress of
our field tests. As you know, we have been transmitting from our television
station on top of the Empire State Building in New York City which is
controlled from the NBC television studios in the RCA Building. We have
observed and measured these transmissions through a number of experimental
receivers located in the metropolitan area and adjacent suburbs. The
results thus far have been encouraging, and instructive. As we anticipated,
many needs that must be met by a commercial service have been made clear
by these tests.

We have successfully transmitted through the air, motion pictures
as well as talent before the televisor. The distance over which these
television programs have been received has exceeded out immediate expectations.
In one favorable location due to extreme height of our transmitter,
we have consistently received transmissions as far as 45 miles from
the Empire State Building.

The tests have been very instructive in that we have learned a great
deal more about the behavior of ultra short waves and how to handle
them. We know more about interferences, most of which are man made and
susceptible of elimination. We have surmounted the difficulties of making
apparatus function outside of the laboratory. We have confirmed the
soundness of the technical fundamentals of our system, and the experience
gained through these tests enables us to chart the needs of a practical
television service.

We shall now proceed to expand our field test in a number of ways.
First, we shall increase the number of observation points in the service
area. Next we will raise the standards of transmission.

High Frequency Transmission Tubes, RCA maintains an inventory
of 220 of these worth more than $25,000.00

Racks of transmission equipment, half audio and half video. These
transmit sound and picture from a single antenna.

In our present field tests we are using a 343 line definition. Radio
Corporation of America and the radio industry have, through the Radio
Manufacturers Association, recommended to the Federal Communications
commission the adoption of 441 line definition as a standard for commercial
operation. Our New York transmitter will be rearranged to conform to
the recommended standards. That also means building synchronized receivers
to conform to the new standards of the transmitter. Synchronization
of transmitting and receiving equipment is a requirement of television
that imposes responsibilities upon those who would furnish a satisfactory
product and render a useful service to the public. On the one hand,
standards cannot be frozen prematurely or progress would be prevented,
while on the other hand, frequently changing standards means rapid obsolescence
of television equipment.

Basic research is a continuing process in our laboratories not only
that the problems of television may be solved but also to develop other
uses of the ultra short and micro waves which possess such vast potentialities
in this new domain of the ether.

While we have thus proceeded on the technical front of television,
the construction and operation of television studios have enabled us
to coordinate our technical advance with the program technique that
a service to the home will ultimately require. Today, you are the guests
of RCA’s broadcasting unit –the National Broadcasting Company. Under
the direction of its president, Mr. Lenox Lohr, the NBC has instituted
a series of television program tests in which we have sought to ascertain
initial requirements.

Ten years ago the National Broadcasting Company began a national service
of sound broadcasting. Now it enters upon its second decade of service
by contributing its facilities and experience to the new art of television.

One of the major problems in television is that of network syndication.
Our present facilities for distribution of sound broadcasting cover
the vast area of the United States and serve its 128,000,000 people.
Similar coverage for television programs, in the present state of the
television art, would require a multiplicity of transmitters and network
interconnection by wire or radio facilities still to be developed.

Our program is three fold; first we must develop suitable commercial
equipment for television and reception; second, we must develop a program
service suitable for network syndication; third, we must also develop
a sound economic base to support a television service.

From the standpoint of research, laboratory development, and technical
demonstration, television progress in the United States continues to
give us an unquestioned position of leadership in the development of
the art. In whatever form such progress may be evident in other countries,
we lead in the research which is daily extending the radio horizon,
and in technical developments that have made possible a transmitting
and receiving system that meets the highest standards thus far obtainable
in field demonstration.

We are now engaged in the development of studio and program techniques
that will tough upon every possibility within the growing progress of
the art. The distinction between television in this country and abroad
is the distinction between experimental public services undertaken under
government subsidy in countries of vastly smaller extent, and the progressive
stages of commercial development undertaken by the free initiative,
enterprise and capital of those who have pioneered the art in the United
States.

While the problems of television are formidable, I firmly believe
they will be solved. With the establishment of a television service
to the public which will supplement and not supplant the present service
of broadcasting, a new industry and new opportunities will have been
created.